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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



MARTIN E^REWER ANDERSON 



Martin Brewer Anderson 



AN APPRECIATION 



Henry C. Vedder 




New York 1 

BAPTIST REVIEW ASSOCIATION 
41 Park Row 






copykight, 1890, by 
The Baptist Review Association. 






^ 



O LOVED and lost, whose like we ne'er shall see, 
Our youth's instructor and our manhood's friend. 
If from the realms of bliss thy glance doth bend, 
And if such earthward glance felicity 

To spirits celestial may impart : to thee 
What joy ineffable must bring this sight — 
How richly thy self-sacrifice requite 
Throughout the aeons of eternity — 

Thy life re -lived in every Christ-like way 
By sons, thine not in flesh but in the truth, 
Sons of thy soul, sons of thy mighty heart. 

Who bear in every noble cause their part. 

O more than sire ! though least of these, in ruth 

This humble wreath upon thy tomb I lay. 



MARTIN BREWER ANDERSON: 

AN APPRECIATION. 

In the closing chapter of a book that every well-regu- 
lated American, old or young, reads, Tom Brown's School- 
daySy is an account of the effect on the hero of the sudden 
news that Arnold of Rugby was dead : 

He felt completely carried off his moral and intellectual legs, as if 
he had lost his standing-point in the invisible world. Besides which, 
the deep, loving loyalty which he felt for his own leader made the shock 
intensely painful. It was the first great wrench of his life, the first gap 
which the angel Death had made in his circle, and he felt numbed, and 
beaten down, and spiritless. . . . '' If he could only have seen the 
doctor again for one five minutes ; have told him all that was in his heart, 
what he owed to him, how he loved and reverenced him, and would, by 
God's help, follow his steps in life and death, he could have borne it all 
without a murmur. But that he should have gone away forever with- 
out knowing it all was too much to bear." 

So felt many a Rochester alumnus when the telegraph 
flashed the news across the continent that President Ander- 
son was no more. The blow was less sudden, perhaps, than 
that which smote Tom Brown, for we had had warning that 
our doctor had failed rapidly — indeed, that his state was 
critical- — but it was no less heavy, and the sorrow was not 
less grievous, because partly anticipated. It did not seem 
that the news could be true. When we were college lads 
our *' Prex " had so impressed us all with a sense of his 
throbbing, exuberant, masterful vitality, his protean and un- 
tiring activity, that it was hard to think of him as mortal 
like the rest of us. And when I saw him last, on the day 
he left New York for Florida, though he was no longer the 
stalwart man of yore, he seemed full of mental vigor and 
hopefulness, and no word or act gave premonition that the 
end was so near. 



The daily and weekly press have borne ample testimony, 
with marked unanimity, to the character of Dr. Anderson's 
services and to his worth as a man. In due time there will 
doubtless follow a memoir or biography, possibly with a 
collection of those essays and addresses that he was prepar- 
ing for the press in his last weeks at Lake Helen. In the 
meantime, it has seemed to a few that something might 
profitably be written, midway between the ephemeral news- 
paper article and the permanent volume — ap article that 
might give to those who knew him only by repute or casu- 
ally a more adequate knowledge of the man, as lie appeared 
to those who met him in the intimacy of the class-room and 
of the home; not a eulogy or a criticism, but, if a word 
savoring of affectation may be properly used of one so un- 
affected, an *' appreciation." Such is the aim of this paper. 
None can be more keenly aware of its shortcomings than its 
author, but on the tomb of a great man any who knew and 
loved him may lay a humble wreath, and who shall say him 
nay ? If in performing this task some things are repeated 
that have been published elsewhere, may not a plea be en- 
tered in justification, according to the old Greek adage that 
a man may once say a thing as he would have it — o^c ok oux 
ivoiy^erm — but he cannot say it twice ? And if the article 
is now and then reminiscent and personal, it may not be the 
less interesting to many readers for that. 

I. 

Though he scouted the theory that heredity and environ- 
ment are omnipotent in the formation of character, Dr. 
Anderson never denied that they are potent factors in de- 
termining a life, only surpassed by the supreme choice of 
the individual will. He was certainly an admirable instance 
of what heredity and environment can and cannot do to- 
wards the making of a great man. From his Scotch-Irish 
ancestry he inherited a strong frame and a stock of physical 



vigor that honored even his prodigal drafts upon it for 
three score years and ten. From the same source came a 
will of steel, the dogged determination, when once the 
cost had been counted and a thing begun, to do or die. 
Along with this went a sound moral nature, a scrupulous . 
conscience, a controlling sense of duty. It was, in a word, 
the grand old Puritan temperament, with a distinct indi- 
viduality — the stuff of which Cromwell's Ironsides and the 
Covenanters were made, somewhat softened and humanized 
by the lapse of two centuries, but not changed in essence. 
An inheritance, this, beyond price to any man, a foundation 
on which character may be securely built. His environment 
was equally fortunate. Born in Brunswick, Me., in 1815, a 
town barely out of the pioneer stage, his early years were 
years of poverty, of strenuous labor, that hardened his mus- 
cles and developed his self-reliance. Poverty in a country 
town was never in those days, and seldom is now, the 
squalid, starving, ragged poverty of a city tenement, dwarf- 
ing the body and debasing the soul. The food might be 
coarse, but it was abundant ; the clothing might be home- 
spun and of uncouth cut, but it was decent and warm. 
Such poverty was rather a wholesonie discipline than a 
scourge, and from conditions like these have risen most 
of the men whose names are honored among Americans 
to-day. 

Young Anderson's opportunities for the development of 
mind and soul were equally adapted to the making of 
strong character. Educational advantages in New England 
were limited in those days, but he had the best of such as 
there were. His father was a man of more than usual edu- 
cation, and at one time taught the village school at Bath, 
Me. Here the lad first showed the thirst for knowledge 
and the aptitude for acquiring it that distinguished him all 
his life, and early marked him out as a predestined scholar. 
While still a mere boy he eked out the slender family in- 



8 

come and provided for his own further schooling by labor- 
ing in a ship-yard. On one occasion, when I was express- 
ing admiration of his superb muscular development, Dr. 
Anderson referred to this fact, and said that he owed his 
great physical strength and his life-long vigor to this em- 
ployment during his youth, and to much practice in rowing 
a heavy boat against wind and tide. In these early years the 
influence of his mother upon him was very great and of the 
happiest character. In a speech at the meeting of the New 
York State Convention, held at Rome in 1884, Dr. Anderson 
made a tender and pathetic reference to his mother, telling 
how in his boyhood she had led him by the hand across the 
fields to a little Baptist church. The religious impressions 
that he received then remained with him through life, and 
had much to do with making him the man he was. At the 
age of eighteen he was converted during a revival at Bath,, 
and was baptized into the Baptist church. He was con- 
verted all over, and he became a Baptist all over — he 
was never the man to do anything by halves- — dedicating 
himself, soul and body, to the service of God and of his 
brethren. 

He now had a fresh incentive to diligence in study, and 
a powerful motive to make his education as complete as 
possible. A debating club in the town gave him a valuable 
stimulus, and under its inspiration he began and continued 
an extensive course ot reading, which laid the foundations 
of the broad scholarship for which he was later noted. 
Completing his preparatory studies with considerable diffi- 
culty, under obstacles and discouragements that would have 
disheartened a less resolute youth, he entered Waterville 
College (now Colby University), in 1836, and was graduated 
in 1840. The testimony of his class-mates, of whom few 
now survive, is that he was in college life what he afterwards 
was — a leader of men, and a scholar of untiring diligence 
and multifarious acquirements. His rank was high, but not 



9 

the highest, for he valued breadth and depth of actual 
knowledge above mere '' marks " gained in the recitation 
room. Feeling called to preach the gospel, he spent the 
year following his graduation, in the Newton Theological 
Institution. A fellow-student, not a class-mate, was Ezekiel 
G. Robinson, soon to win like fame with him as an educator. 
In some lately published reminiscences. Dr. Robinson tells 
us that the two students were drawn into some degree of 
intimacy by a common participation in the debating society 
then maintained by the Newton theologues. Doubtless 
they were sometimes antagonists in these friendly contests, 
and when they were we may be certain that the sparks flew, 
for then each met a foeman worthy of his steel. 

In 1841, the offer of a tutorship at Waterville tempted 
Anderson to intermit his studies for a time, with the 
prospect of so replenishing his purse that he could go on in 
independence. He did not, however, then contemplate 
more than this. During the winter of 1842-3 he ac- 
cepted an engagement to supply the pulpit of the E Street 
Church, of Washington. He was now in the flush and vigor 
of his young manhood, and his preaching made no little stir 
in the capital city. A sermon that he delivered in the 
House of Representatives was particularly praised by all 
who heard it, and some notable public men became inter- 
ested in the youthful preacher and his career. It is not diffi- 
cult to understand this success. At this period, as in later 
years, he had all the characteristics of a great orator — a 
striking, a commanding presence, a voice sonorous and 
strong, and in these early years musical and rich, a keen 
and logical mind, a strong Saxon style, and, added to all, 
that indefinable something which for lack of a better word 
we call '' magnetism," the power of moving the feelings and 
controlling the wills of other men. Few have gifts better 
adapted to win success in public life, and there can be no 
doubt that had the young preacher at that time chosen such 



lO 

a career — for which he felt himself to have special qualifica- 
tions, but from which his conscience held him back — the 
great prizes of the political world would have been at his 
disposal. In later years Dr. Anderson was a speaker whose 
power was sometimes marvellous. I remember especially a 
speech that he made in Rochester at a public meeting soon 
after the outbreak of the Civil War. The meeting was held 
in a tent, and I, a lad not yet ten years of age, was allowed 
as a special favor to attend it. I had never heard of Dr. 
Anderson, and it was some years later that I knew who 
he was, but that evening's speech is burned into my mem- 
ory, there to remain to the latest moment of life — the fiery 
passion of patriotism that inspired the orator, and the pitch 
of wild enthusiasm to which he roused the meeting, as the 
flaming flood of eloquence poured forth. When he ceased, 
it seemed as if nearly every able-bodied man in the tent 
rushed forward to enroll himself among the defenders of his 
country, and in a few weeks the Old Thirteenth marched to 
the front. It is told of Demosthenes, as the crowning proof 
of his oratoric greatness, that when he harangued the 
Athenians they cried, ** Let us march against Philip." On 
this occasion Dr. Anderson scored the same kind of a 
triumph, and proved himself capable of the highest eloquence. 
It required a noble cause to rouse him to his best efforts, 
but he always rose to a great occasion, and then he was 
magnificent. 

It was about this time that his whole plan of life was 
altered. His splendid physique and superabundant health 
made him careless. He fancied he could do anything and 
bear everything. A day's exposure to cold and wet, and a 
night's sleeping in a damp bed brought on a cold that 
nearly proved fatal, and resulted in the temporary impairment 
of his health and the loss of his voice. The latter calamity 
was supposed to be permanent ; physicians assured him 
that he could never hope to be a public speaker. He re- 



luctantly gave up the idea of completing his studies for the 
ministry and accepted a chair proffered by his alma mater. 
The doctors were wrong, as they often are. In a few years 
his general health was restored to its accustomed robust- 
ness, and gradually he regained much of his voice. It 
never had again, probably, the flexibility and sweetness ot 
his youth ; there was always a husky quality audible, and 
its compass was not great, but in power it was all one 
could desire. Accepting the verdict of the physicians, he 
devoted himself to his new career with the ardor and thor- 
oughness that marked whatever he did. It is not dispar- 
aging to his colleagues to say that he became, in his brief 
period of service, the soul of the Waterville faculty. He 
taught in the several departments — mathematics, English 
literature and rhetoric, philosophy — doing excellent work 
in all. Once during my college course he called me to his 
room to commend an essay I had written, and to suggest a 
change in my style. It was, he said, too florid and had a 
trick of circumlocution. *' Go straight to the mark; say 
what you mean, and don't try to get finer bread than can 
be made of wheat," was his counsel. And then he became 
reminiscent. '' When I was a young professor at Water- 
ville, I had to correct the students' essays, and some of 
them had your fault (here a sly glance at me) of trying tO' 
be too fine. So I would call one of them into my room and 
go over his essay with him. I would take one of his flowery 
sentences and say, * Now, Mr. Jones, just what did you 
mean by that ?' ' Well, I meant thus and so.' * Say thus 
and so, then, and don't say something else.' And so I 
would go over sentence after sentence and insist that he 
should say, in a straightforward and simple style, exactly 
the thought he had in mind. The boys used to think I was 
rough on them, but it did 'em good ; it was just what they 
needed." He left me to infer that it was just what I needed, 
and I neither disputed him then nor afterwards. In one's 



12 

sophomoric stage such discipline is invaluable, if it does 
seem a trifle severe at the time. But Dr. Anderson had a 
way of sugar-coating his bitter pills that made them almost 
pleasant to take. 

It was while he was at Waterville that Professor Ander- 
son was married. His wife was Elizabeth Gilbert, the daugh- 
ter of a respected merchant of New York, eminent among 
the Baptist laymen of fifty years ago. " Marriage," our Prex 
used sometimes to say to us, " either makes a man or 
breaks him." If such be the case, marriage made him. 
No one who ever knew Mrs. Anderson once questioned that 
she was '* a perfect woman, nobly planned," and the ideal 
wife for her husband. It was a wedded life that gave vis- 
ible form to Tennyson's picture : 

Yet in the long years liker must they grow ; 

The man be more of woman, she of man ; 

He gain in sweetness and in moral height, 

Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world .... 

Till at the last she set herself to man " 

Like perfect music unto noble words. 

II. 

Some obscurity hangs over the close of Dr. Anderson's 
first period of service as an educator. Why he left Water- 
ville I have never heard, and perhaps it would not be dis- 
creet to inquire. It is enough to know that in 1850 he came 
to New York and engaged in journalism. It is true that 
the journalist as well as the poet is born, not made, but it is 
also true in most cases that he is made as well as born. Dr. 
Anderson furnishes almost a solitary instance of immediate 
and marked success in one of the most difficult and exacting 
of callings, without any previous training for it. Nothing in 
all his career better proved his native ability and acquired 
learning, or more clearly showed him to be a man predes- 
tinate to be successful in whatever he undertook, than his 
brief journalistic career. I say brief, for it lasted barely 
three years, but into those years how much of strenuous 



13 

labor he crowded and how well he showed hfs right to a 
man's place among men. He was but thirty-five when he 
began this work, but the New- York Recorder leaped at once 
to the forefront of religious weeklies. For the first time he 
now became widely known in the denomination, as one v/ho 
had it in him to do great things. These years were in the 
sttirm Mfid drang period of Baptist affairs. The Bible Union 
controversy was waging in its early fierceness, and Dr. 
Anderson's convictions impelled him to range himself with 
the opponents of a new English version of the Scriptures. 
This was only one, though to Baptists the most exciting, of 
many controversies. The conflict over the removal of the 
Hamilton institutions to Rochester fell within the period of 
his journalistic service, and from the first he sided with the 
Rochester party, being made one of the Board of Trustees. 
In these battles the young editor bore an active part. 
He was no carpet-knight of controversy, but a doughty 
warrior, able to give and ready to take hard knocks — 

His quick, keen, urgent, sinewy, certain thrust 
Those knights well knew who felt it in the joust. 

He was not a man, however, who took kindly to 
poisoned arrows or foul blows ; he fought fairly himself, 
and an unfair adversary had him therefore at a disadvan- 
tage, for he disdained as much to retaliate in kind as he 
smarted keenly under wounds thus received. A strong and 
noble nature like his is capable of endless endurance in a 
fair contest, where *' sand " or the ability to take punish- 
ment is one of the conditions of success ; but feels, with a 
keenness unknown to ignoble men, the smart of injustice, 
and the indignity of being smitten by a vile adversary. 
Some wounds received in this way rankled in Dr. Ander- 
son's soul till a late period of his life, if not to the very end. 
In a letter, written only two years before his death, he made 
a bitter reference to the "■ newspaper abuse " he had re- 



14 

ceived during, and for some time after, his career as a New 
York journalist. 

As an editor Dr. Anderson was especially strong in 
leader- writing. His fulness of information, industry, sturdy 
sense, and robust English style made his articles models of 
the stately editorial writing that prevailed in those days, 
though it is somewhat out of fashion now. He had the 
" nose for news," (a phrase of his own, characteristically 
apt), but it may perhaps be questioned if his experience 
lasted long enough to develop in him certain other qualities 
indispensable in one who would make a well-balanced and 
complete weekly religious newspaper. That further exper- 
ience would have developed these qualities is not at all to 
be questioned. He was powerful in controversy, and espec 
ially happy in defending and enforcing the distinctive prin- 
ciples avowed by the Baptist churches. Then, as through- 
out his life, he was firm in his convictions and constant in 
his loyalty to them. One of his students who knew him 
well and loved him proportionally. Rev. Robert S. Mac- 
Arthur, D.D., has written on this point with a felicity of 
phrase that leaves nothing to be desired : 

He was withal a leal-hearted Baptist. In the bottom of his soul 
he loved the interests of the denomination to which he gave the en- 
husiasm of his youth, the strength of his manhood, and the ripe wis- 
dom of his later years. He knew that the scholarship, the art, the his- 
tory of the world, are on our side ; he knew that the Word of God is 
the foundation stone in our denominational structure. The prominence 
of his position, the wide relationships he had with leading men in 
other denominations, never hindered him from using an opportunity, 
when such words could be appropriately spoken, to emphasize our fun- 
damental principles as in harmony with the Word of God, the best in- 
terests of the religious life and with the largest and highest culture. 
He did not think that the institution he loved would be benefitted by 
silence or ambiguity on his part as to his denominational convictions. 
He did not crave any modifications or concessions in our denominational 
policy. He was satisfied — he was proud — to be and to avow himself, 
'' a through, and through Baptist." 

The experience gained in journalism. Dr. Anderson 
made most useful in his after career as teacher. Nothing 



15 

was more characteristic of the man than the fertility of re - 
source, the quickness of insight, the readiness of adapta- 
tion by which he made everything he had ever read or ex- 
perienced pay tribute to the present duty. Thenceforth, 
throughout life, he looked out over the world and watched 
the making of history, with the mind of a scholar it is true, 
but also with the eye of a journalist. None of his old stu- 
dents will ever forget the " chapel talks " in which Dr. 
Anderson exercised what he used to call *' the editorial 
function of the teacher," by terse comments on current 
events, elucidating the principles underlying them, and set- 
ting them forth in their historical relations. These talks were 
in themselves a liberal education for young men, sharpening 
the mind and broadening the outlook beyond any of the 
more formal studies of the course. They were always in- 
forming, skilfully stimulating curiosity and impelling to in- 
vestigation rather than telling everything, and not infre- 
quently were delivered with afireand impetuosityof eloquence 
that made them most valuable object-lessons in oratory. 
Of all my college course, I recall nothing that I would not 
rather have spared than these *' chapel talks." 

Ill 

No institution of learning had smaller or more unprom- 
ising beginnings than the University of Rochester. A big 
name and a few professors were its outfit. I have read, but 
cannot verify, a satirical account of it by Ralph Waldo 
Emerson, to the effect that a Rochester hotel keeper had 
found that his building would rent better as a college, had put 
in a few books, secured a coach-load of students from 
another school and had had a crop of graduates before time 
for green peas. This tale is evidently a work of the imagina- 
tion, but there was enough truth in it to make it sting at 
the time, though we can afford to laugh at it now. Just 
why it was that the trustees of this institution pitched upon 



i6 

the New- York editor as the best man to be head and leader 
of this new and almost desperate enterprise, is unknown to 
me. Certain it is that they voted more wisely than they 
knew. A man who had frequently been a journalistic 
antagonist in controversy, to his uniform discomfiture, took 
occasion to '' get even " by telling the public that this Mr. 
Anderson had been a failure in all that he had ever under- 
taken and would undoubtedly be a failure in his new posi- 
tion. The laughable ineptitude of this prediction, in view 
of one of the greatest successes in the educational work of 
America, lends great force to Mr. Lowell's advice, 

Don't never prophesy onless ye know. 

Of this success how is it possible to speak in terms too 
warm ? Not a few Rochester alumni, doubtless, can say 
with Matthew Arnold : — 

For rigorous teachers seized my youth, 
And purged its faith, and trimm'd its fire, 
Shew'd me the high, white star of Truth, 
There bade me gaze, and there aspire, 

but every one of them will, without disloyalty to the rest, 
place first among his teachers Dr. Anderson. To those 
who had an intimate knowledge of his methods and their 
results, he will always be the beaji ideal of the great teacher. 
He was a great teacher because he was a great man— an 
omnivorous intellect, a splendid physique, a stalwart char- 
acter, an all-compelling will, a tender heart. Merely to 
describe him as a great teacher is not to describe, 
but only to characterize, him. There are teachers and 
teachers. Some teachers are distinguished mainly by 
their power to impart knowledge. Students who pass 
through their classes are graduated well crammed ; but 
whether the information has been digested and assimilated 
is another question. There are other teachers who|have the 
faculty of directing students in their studies, of arousing an 



17 

earnest and even enthusiastic spirit, of impelling each man 
to investigate, think and judge for himself And there 
are still other teachers who are comparatively weak on the 
scholastic side, but are eminent in ability to develop the 
manliness and mould the character of their pupils. 

Dr. Anderson belonged to no one of these classes, but 
combined in himself all these characteristics, though in very 
unequal proportions, and this inequality was one secret of 
his strength. When he entered on his work at Rochester, 
in 1853, he had, as we have seen, already made his mark as 
a teacher. At Waterville he had shown himself in a rare 
degree possessed of the qualities required in the class-room. 
At Rochester he took rank from the first among the fore- 
most educators of America. I think he never cared to ex- 
cel as a mere imparter of knowledge, rightly estimating 
this as the lowest function of the teacher. Greater masters 
of the technique of pedagogy there doubtless have been ; he 
was no martinet in drill ; he did not regard his students in 
the light of Strasburg geese, to be stuffed with all the learn- 
ing that could by hook or crook be crammed into them. 
His idea was to produce men — scholarly men, to be sure 
but men first, and scholars afterwards. His efforts were 
devoted, therefore, first of all and most of all, to stimulat- 
ing the minds and arousing the consciences of his classes. 
He taught men how to think and investigate for themselves, 
rather than gave them results. In a word, he recognized 
that the larger half of education is teaching men how to use 
their tools. He used to say, sometimes, "When I see you 
young men in the halls getting red in the face over a dis- 
cussion of some knotty point in philosophy or scholarship, 
I know that my work is more than half done." He excelled 
in power to waken the most sluggish intellect, and give to 
each man in an average class a mental impulse that would 
last years after his graduation, and in most cases will last as 
long as life itself. If it were possible to rouse a dull mind, 



to spur a lazy will, or (to use a favorite phrase of his) "■ to 
create a soul under the ribs of death," he was the man to 
do it. If he failed the task was hopeless, and rarely did he 
fail. How many Rochester alumni will confess with grat- 
itude to their dying day, that what they have done or may 
do of good work is due in God's providence to the fact that 
Dr. Anderson first taught them to brace their wills and gird 
up the loins of their minds to earnest efforts. 

The most valuable part of college work is the formation 
of character. Greater than all Dr. Anderson's great powers 
of mind was his power to give his students a lasting 
moral impulsion, a healthful and uplifting direction to their 
aspirations and ambitions. This power, the gift of God, 
was richly blessed by the Spirit of God, as many an alumnus 
can bear testimony from the depths of a grateful heart. He 
held up to his students a lofty ideal of Christian manhood — 
keeping it always before them by example as well as by 
precept. He did not undervalue worldly success — he was 
often more ambitious for his boys than they were for them- 
selves, and spurred them on to greater exertions — but he 
taught them to hold loyalty to truth and manhood in 
higher esteem than wealth or honors. Coming to him as 
these men did at the critical stage in the formation of 
character, with adverse conditions of heredity or training 
in many cases, it is surprising how uniformly they were 
turned toward the right and the true. The cases of failure 
may be counted on the fingers of one hand. As the Roman 
matron, pointing to the young Gracchi, said, *' Behold my 
jewels," we may point to the long and honorable roll of 
alumni graduated under Dr. Anderson as his chief ornament 
and title to perpetual remembrance. Hardly a worthless 
character is to be found on that roll. The graduates of 
Rochester are not all great men, not all men of genius, but, 
almost without exception, they are good men and true, 
doing their duty faithfully where God has placed them. 



19 

And this fact is the natural result of the influence exerted 
on class after class for thirty-five years. Eternity only will 
tell the full result of those years' work. There are hundreds 
of us who owe everything to wise words of counsel, of 
reproof, or of kindly advice, given at critical moments — 
words that were, in many a case, the turning-point of a 
lifetime. If we have some love for sound learning, broad 
culture, accurate scholarship ; if we desire always to be 
manly and true, and at any cost faithful to the right ; if our 
ideal of a noble life is faithful service to God and our 
fellows, rather than the winning of the prizes of wealth and 
ambition ; we owe it to his teachings, enforced by his 
example. 

His discipline kept in view the same high aims. For the 
first year or two of college life the student felt admiration 
and awe for the " Prex." As he came more closely in 
contact with Dr. Anderson he found that under a somewhat 
grim and leonine aspect there was as warm a heart as ever 
beat; that he really had, and did not merely affect to have, 
a personal interest in the welfare of each man. There were 
few of us who did not have occasion at some time to hold a 
private interview with him in the awful precincts of the 
president's room- — in my day a gloomy and ill-furnished 
apartment of Anderson Hall, well fitted to strike terror into 
the heart of the conscious delinquent. The terror of these 
interviews was mainly in anticipation. He knew how to wink 
at pecadilloes, and knew as well how to repress with firmness, 
and, if necessary, with severity, serious uprisings against 
salutary law. He could speak scorching words of censure 
when they were deserved, he could pass lightly over what 
was the mere ebullition of boyish spirits. If at any time a 
student experienced the truth of the Scripture that '' no 
chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but griev- 
ous," he also in due time, if not utterly incorrigible, found 
it true that *' it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness 



20 

unto them which are exercised thereby." For his reproofs 
were so wisely administered, and were followed by counsel 
so kind and fatherly, that the man went out of the room 
with genuine regret for his misconduct, with deep respect 
and affection for his '* Prex," and with a high resolve there- 
after to deserve his confidence. And there were interviews 
of another kind in that room, when men went to the pres- 
ident in trouble, or at his request to talk about their future, 
and in every case received help that was invaluable. If 
there ever was a college head who managed his troublesome 
boys so well as Dr. Anderson, certainly no one ever did it 
with more unfailing tact and firm kindness. 

Ideal-Christian teacher, master, man, 
Severely sweet, a gracious Puritan, 
Beyond my praise to-day, beyond their blame, 
He spurs me yet with his remembered name. * 

IV. 

But Dr. Anderson was more than a great teacher ; he 
was a great scholar, in the fullest sense of the term. Many 
men of far smaller attainments make a greater display of 
learning. His was not a nature that delighted in display ; 
esse quam videri was his motto, to be, rather than to seem, 
his aim. His scholarship was encyclopaedic — no other word 
describes it. His intellectual curiosity was insatiable and 
his capacity for acquisition enormous. When he was in 
a company of learned men, no subject could be started about 
which he did not seem to be fully informed, and in many 
cases his knowledge astonished specialists. In my time he 
could and did at a pinch teach a class in any department of 
the college, and the keenest students could not in such an 

* These lines are from a poem by William Cleaver Wilkinson, "A Re- 
membered Teacher." I do not know that the teacher was Dr. Anderson, but 
these verses so admirably express my estimate of his character that I cannot for-- 
bear quoting them. 



21 

emergency catch him tripping. This weight of learning 
was borne as easily as a mediaeval knight wore his armor. 
His multifarious knowledge was all assimilated, classified, 
ready for instant use, and above all it was accurate. He 
was not one of those men who know a thousand things and 
know them all wrong. He was intolerant of inaccurate, 
slovenly work, in himself or in others ; crude and preten- 
tious sciolism was the one thing for which he had no mercy. 
To those who knew Dr. Anderson but slightly, or who 
knew him not at all, this may seem extravagant eulogy ; 
to those who knew him well, it will seem short of the 
truth. His mind was teeming with information and ideas, 
and nothing pleased him so much as to find somebody with 
whom to share both. There is a tale still told in Roches- 
ter, that ought to be true if it is not, that he was once very 
ill of cholera, and his life despaired of. While in this con- 
dition he beckoned to a friend watching by him. Bending 
over the sick man to receive, as he supposed, a (possibly) dy- 
ing injunction about some weighty matter, what was his 

surprise to hear the words, '' By the way, , I wish you 

would read so and so," mentioning a recent article in a 
periodical that had attracted his own attention and inter- 
ested him greatly. He rarely met one of his old students 
or personal friends without suggesting some book to read, 
some line of investigation to pursue, or some article, or 
speech, or sermon to be prepared. In a ten-minute talk he 
would lay out more work than one could do in a year, even 
if one were a very diligent worker, with plenty of spare 
time. He never took umbrage if his suggestions were not 
followed, but if by chance the seed fell into good soil and 
brought forth fruit, his interest in the progress of the work 
and his pride in the result could not have been greater had 
he been the worker, and of praise he was prodigal when he 
was certain that honest work had been done. He was not 
sparing of criticism — criticism searching, intelligent, kindly. 



22 

reconstructive ; for he not merely pulled the badly-built edi- 
fice down about one's ears, but showed one how to put it up 
properly. Some who knew him imperfectly were hurt by 
his frequent suggestions and criticisms, supposing them to 
evidence an opinion on his part that he knew their business 
or profession better than they. They misjudged the man. 
He could no more help throwing out these hints than a full 
fountain can help overflowing. He gave out knowledge as 
the sun gives out its heat, because this was his nature ; he 
suggested new lines of thought and experiment because his 
fruitful mind brought forth ideas that he had no time nor 
opportunity to utilize, and out of sheer good-will he be- 
stowed them on others. A man conscious of intellectual 
poverty would have husbanded carefully, and made a con- 
siderable reputation of, what he poured out on every side 
with the carelessness of boundless wealth. 

Amid the duties of an exacting profession, and the cares 
of administration. Dr. Anderson yet found time to do an 
amount of writing, in volume respectable, and in quality 
high. Of late years his literary activity was much dimin- 
ished, but in the earlier years of his college work his contri- 
butions to periodical literature were both frequent and 
valuable, showing great research, firm grasp of principles, 
and the power of coordinating knowledge and speculation. 
A series of essays published in the Christian Review, then 
the principal organ of philosophy and theology in this 
country, deserve especial mention: ''The Origin and 
Political Life of the English Race," (1850), ''Language as 
a Means of Classifying Man," (1859), " Sir William Hamil- 
ton's Lectures," (i860), "Berkeley and his Works," (1861), 
" Growth and Relation of the Sciences," and " The Arabian 
Philosophy," (1862). Among my pamphlets, and in vari- 
ous volumes accessible to me, I find the following papers : 
"The University of the Nineteenth Century," " Voluntary- 
ism in Education," " The Right Use of Wealth," " The Doc- 



23 

trine of Evolution," " Outdoor Relief," " Christianity and the 
Common Law." These topics barely suggest the range of 
his studies, and the catholicity of his sympathy. He, if any 
man of our day, might take as his motto: Homo sum; hu- 
mani nihil a me alienum puto. 

But this list of titles only suggests what Dr. Anderson 
was, and what he might have done ; the reading of the 
papers, indeed, does little more. In his case, as has been 
happily remarked, the whole was greater than the sum ofall its 
parts. In the last months of his life, Dr. Anderson, yield- 
ing to the advice of many friends, contrary to his own inclin- 
ation and judgment, arranged for the publicationof avolume 
of these collected papers. A publisher was found on his last 
visit to New York, and when his fatal illness began he was 
at work on the necessary revisions. Like most men of real 
power, he was conscious of his strength, and he knew well 
that neither any one of his writings, nor the sum of them all, 
was the measure of his ability. Not having been able to do 
justice to himself in these desultory productions, he would 
rather go to his grave with no permanent literary memorial, 
than leaving one so inadequate. He was great-hearted 
enough with open eyes to sacrifice the prospect of fame, as 
a man of letters, in order to put his whole soul and strength 
into his work as educator ; but he shrank from giving to the 
world less than his best, lest it be taken to be his best. If 
there was here a touch of the old man and his pride, it only 
serves to prove him human like ourselves, and not that 
''faultless monster that the world ne'er saw." In fact, as 
those who saw much of him well know. Dr. Anderson was 
very human. He neither was, nor pretended to be, perfect 
but to me, at least, it always seemed that even his failings 
leaned to virtue's side. If he had not been restrained by 
the grace of God, he might have been what Dr. Johnson 
loved, a good hater ; as it was, he reserved his hatreds for 
shams and lies, and anything else that is base and vile. 



24 

Errors he doubtless committed, but if in all his life he ever 
did anything small and mean and contemptible, this naughty 
world, which is usually so quick to see and to bruit such 
deeds, has for once failed to do either. 



V. 



It was true, as Dr. Strong so happily said at the funeral 
service, that Dr. Anderson was the first citizen of Rochester. 
He was also one of the first citizens of the Empire State. 
Devoted as his life was to his special work, he yet found 
time to perform many eminent services for his fellow citi- 
zens. The ''by-products" of his life-work would have made 
a respectable career for an ordinary man. His service in 
the State Board of Charities was long, laborious and use- 
ful ; his labors as a member of the Niagara Falls Inter- 
national Commission were equally honorable to himself 
and useful to his fellow-citizens ; his advice was often 
sought by public men on important measures, and his coun- 
sels in such cases were potent. The same may be said of 
his relations to the denomination that had his hearty loyalty 
and devoted service. He was President in turn of its two 
largest missionary organizations, a Life Director in others, 
and no man was more heartily welcomed either to the grave 
discussions of boaid meetings or to the platform of public 
meetings. In the one his sound judgment and wide knowl- 
edge of men, in the other his power of practical and elo- 
quent address, made him a force always arrayed in favor of 
any measure or policy that promised to promote the king- 
dom of God among men. 

But, after all is said, the best measure of Dr. Anderson's 
greatness is the University to whose founding he consecrated 
himself in the flush of young manhood. This is his great- 
est work — greater than any '' works " he might have left 
in paper and ink, though never so voluminous. To " lay 



25 

foundations under ground," as he used to put it, was the 
end to which he devoted the best of himself and of his life. 
" This one thing 1 do" was the keynote of that life. He 
poured out himself with unstinted self-sacrifice. It seemed 
a pity, sometimes, that a man who touched life at so many 
points, so strong, so admirably equipped by nature and by 
culture for a great career, so rich in manhood, should be 
*' cabined, cribbed, confined" within limits thus narrow. 
It was indeed a noble sacrifice, but was the end entirely 
unworthy of it ? More and more it will appear that he 
builded better than he knew, not only for the University 
but for his own name and fame. Had Dr. Anderson's 
heart been selfishly set on achieving for himself an enduring 
fame, he could have taken no other way so certain to reach 
that goal. There are few instances of completer fulfilment 
of that paradox of Jesus, '' He that loseth his life for my 
sake shall find it." As scholar and author, as statesman or 
man of affairs — for he had notable gifts in any of these 
directions — he might have made for himself a greater pres- 
ent notoriety, and won for himself more wealth, only to be 
speedily forgotten, perhaps. But nothing is so permanent 
among human institutions as a seat of learning. The uni- 
versity of Salerno has an uninterrupted history from the 
ninth century, the university of Bclogna dates from the be- 
ginning of the twelfth century, and the university of Paris 
from the thirteenth. The oldest dynas.y in Europe cannot 
boast such antiquity. Revolutions have swept over the 
continent, wars have devastated it, empires have risen, 
flourished and decayed, the map of Europe has been recon- 
structed times without number, but the great institutions of 
learning have been left undisturbed. The names of their 
founders and faithful servants have been gratefully pre- 
served while oblivion has buried contemporary princes and 
prelates. There is nothing in which man can make invest- 
ment, either of his fortune or of his life, with such certainty 



26 

of permanent results, as in the making of a university. This 
Dr. Anderson well knew, and nothing but the knowledge of 
it enabled him to do and to bear through thirty-six weary 
years. He had faith in the^ future of the institution to which 
he gave his life, because he had faith in God, and had read 
His providential dealings in the history of mankind. 
The work he has done will abide, to be a memorial 
more lasting than marble or brass. It is no disparage- 
ment to others who have wrought and made sacrifices, and 
there have been many such, to say that the University of 
Rochester owes what it is to-day to the wise foresight, 
unceasing labors, and indomitable will of Martin Brewer 
Anderson. He came to the college in its infancy, when it 
had hardly more than a name to live ; his death leaves it 
with a handsome property, well endowed and equipped, an 
institution influential and honored throughout the country^ 
To a stranger who walks up the spacious and beautiful camr 
pus at Rochester, and, gazing at the stately buildings that 
rise on either hand, inquires for a memorial of its first 
president and real founder, one may answer in the words of 
Sir Christopher Wren's noble epitaph, 

SI MONUMENTUM REQUIRIS, CIRCUMSPICE. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

029 918 978 8 



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